Quarian Chronicles
by nickharris411
Summary: A college student and his three friends are sucked into the Mass Effect universe a year after the events of Mass effect 1. Read the story of defiant quarian as he goes in search for his friends in a universe he thought he knew with a body he doesn't know and abilities he never had. Will combine with ME2 and is also (kinda) self insert. Femshep ftw.
1. Chapter 1

Hi this is literally my first fanfic so be blunt if you give a review i'm trying to learn here. Being as it's my first fanfic it might have errors in it so any tips or advice would be appreciated. This is only the intro chapter and as this is a self-insert(kinda) piece there won't be any action this chapter. I really hope to change that quickly and get this thing going. Well I hope you enjoy the first chapter of my story Quarian Chronicles. Enjoy! Oh and EA and Bioware own all this shit just in case you were wondering. I own nothing.

"Dude you are so fucking bad at this," laughed Oliver brightly as he revived Jace for a second time that round. Derrick laughed quietly to himself as he focused on gunning down the Collector troopers swarming around his friends. "Jesus Jason how long has it been since you played?" Hannah's curious voice rang in Derrick's ear as he looked over to see his friends Asari Huntress gunning down Collectors beside his Quarian engineer. "Well unlike all you fucking honor students my dumbass has practice ever day along with my classes," Jason retorted indignantly as his N7 Destroyer launched a missile to wipeout a possessed praetorian, "It's not easy playing college football, being a average student, and being a diligent gamer. We can't all be like Derrick and be born fucking mathematical prodigies who just ace all their classes with the bare minimum of efforts." Derrick snorted into his mike as he took the head off another collector, "I'm sorry but don't you play at Stanford?" "Yeah, last time I checked people still think that anyone who goes to MIT is still smarter than anyone who goes to Stanford," Oliver noted dryly as he backed up Derrick in pushing back another wave of troopers. "Whatever, there are twelve year olds here who are just as smart as me if not smarter," said Derrick quickly as he heard Jason make an offended noise through his mike.

This was one of the few times a month they could all get together and hang out even if it was over their X-box live accounts. Ever since they'd moved away to their respective colleges the friends had been falling more and more out of touch. And for Derrick that was a problem. It wasn't a problem for Jason and his being on a nationally ranked football team and all. And it wasn't a problem for the overly talkative Oliver at Penn State as he was the most social of them all. And lastly it wasn't an issue for Hannah as she was a gorgeous poli sci student at Harvard and having been the class president at there highschool for all four of their years was no stranger to making new friends. Derrick on the other hand was damn near socially retarded.

It wasn't that he was actually handicapped or anything he was just…awkward. At 5"11 with brown eyes and brown hair he was your average white nerd. Although thanks to Jason who had forced him to work out with him and Oliver he wasn't the beanstalk he knew he'd be without his friends near insane physical workout regiment. Thanks to that he was adequately in shape toned with a flat stomach, but nowhere near the muscle structure of Oliver and Jason. No he was more lanky than muscled. However, it had never been his appearance that had been the problem since he could usually give 0 fucks what someone thought of his appearance as long as he approved it.

No Derrick suffered from social anxiety. He'd be uncomfortable and awkward around strangers where moments ago he'd been perfectly fine talking to one of his friends. The anxiety had gotten better by the end of high school, but was still an issue now in College where his friends were spread out across the country. Making new friends had been hell so far so every gaming session he could get in with his old friends was in its own way cathartic. With the four of them he could just be himself. He didn't have to pretend to be some sort of boy genius as many would describe him. He could speak without overthinking things or worrying about saying something weird. It was a freedom he'd thought he'd find at MIT, but had been surprised to find the opposite. The famous school was amazing but COMPETITIVE. Nearly every person he met was out for themselves. Sure the curriculum was incredible and his classes delightfully challenging, but Derrick had been hoping to find a place where he'd finally be able to be comfortable and be himself. And a room full of intellectuals as smart or smarter than him turned out not to be it. Nope, he'd found petty idea stealing and classroom politics at his new school. So he'd done what he did before he met Oliver, Jason, and Hannah, he hid. Not literally, he just didn't go out in public that much and this semester had been somewhat of a hermit. His reclusive behavior was mostly why he'd been able to completely level up every playable multiplayer character in Mass effect 3. If that was bad enough he even knew each of the character by name as well as all of their abilities. Derrick sighed as he helped revive Jason again, he really needed to try harder to make more friends. Being a recluse was not as fun as he'd thought it would be.

"Um is anyone else seeing this," Hannah's confused voice said bringing Derrick out of his self reflective thoughts. Derrick began to fought his way past a trio of praetorians to get to her, but Oliver arrived first, "What is it Han-…the fuck?" Derrick ran up a second later to see his friends aiming out at a huge black hole just hanging there. They were playing on the Firebase Dagger map with it's ever present blinding sandstorm. And last time Derrick had checked there was no black hole floating just outside the base. "Um is this like some sort of event I don't know about?" asked Jason as he ran up to the trio. A thought occurred to Derrick a second after he had spoken. "Where are all the Collectors?" Derrick wondered aloud as he looked around at the now empty base. When he looked back at the black hole he could begin to see that a red light had begin to faintly show through the darkness. It looked…familiar. BWAAAAMMM! The huge blast of bass made Derrick jump in his seat before the screen before him flashed a blinding white light. As he shielded his eyes he realized that the light wasn't just coming from the television it was literally beginning to fill the room. In a matter of seconds he couldn't see the floor of his room. In a few more he could only see himself and the controller in his hands. Then the light began to spread up his hands sending the strangest sensation through him. The light wasn't painful so at first he didn't react, but when he noticed his skin beginning to peel and come off in flakes he tried to scream, only to find that his face had begun to peel as well and as he looked on in mute terror at his hands skin give away from beneath the skin came a blue glow. Derrick became very woozy at the premise of his skin literally peeling off him, but he struggled not to faint. After all what would happen if he did? Was he dying? Were these his last strange moments alive? And had he really been killed off by a copy of Mass Effect 3? And what the hell was happening to his fingers? His hands were now made nearly entirely of glowing blue light. As he watched the glowing digits his middle and pointer fingers suddenly snapped tightly together followed a second later by the ring and pinky fingers. Slowly he watched, petrified in half fascination/ half terror, as they merged together to form thicker stronger fingers. Next his thumbs began to thicken and grow as he looked at them change. In under thirty seconds his finger had changed. And that wasn't all that was changing he felt his entire body begin to be altered as his shins seemed to bend backwards in the wrong direction as his toes seemed to fuse together into two longer thicker toes with a strange third toe on the mid outside of the foot. Derrick fought to stay awake, but at the sight of his toes turning from five to three his world began to rock precariously. Knowing he was only moments away from fainting he prayed to god and who ever else would listen for mercy. To his surprise a voice laughed in his mind. Mercy? This is no punishment Derrick Freeman, this is a gift. Derrick could only blink in surprise at the answer before the sensory overload finally took it's toll and he fell into unconsciousness. And so Derrick Freeman passed from his world into a new one. One more fraught with danger and excitement than he could ever imagine.


	2. A new suit for a new man

Hey everyone. I'm greatful for everyone who's reading this and bearing with having to wait for me to update. As much as I'd like to just sit down and focus on knocking this out I am in College and like a genius decided to start a fanfic literally days before Finals. Anyways I'd love some feedback on how I'm doing so far. Where can I improve, how can I do better, stuff like that. This is my first fanfic after all and it'll only get better with any advice I get. So thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy this chapter and continue to read Quarian Chronicles. Oh, and Bioware owns all this stuff except for the OC's of course.

Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. The sound of water dripping on glass sounded above Derrick as his eyes slowly blinked open. The first thing he noticed was the press of material to his skin. It felt like every inch of him was covered in some tight fitting material that clung to every inch of him. The second was that as he sat up the glass moved with him the water droplets covering it sliding down and out of view. He was wearing some sort of helmet.

Sitting up from the ground he froze as he saw something very off about his legs. His shins were bent much farther back then they normally would be. As his gaze traveled farther down the limbs they came to a halt on his feet as he simply sat staring at the two two large toe-like things on the end of his feet. Derrick's eyes squinted down at the feet. He recognized those feet. They looked remarkably like the ones he'd seen quarians standing on in the Mass Effect series. A nervous laugh came out from his mouth as he gazed down at the foreign limbs. What was this some sort of strange cosplay? No, he thought, no human legs could possibly bend back like this.

Wondering if they we broken Derrick reached out to touch them when he noticed a three fingered hand reaching out where a five fingered hand should have been. Slowly, and not wanting to believe it, he bent his arm slowly and watched as the three fingered hand came closer to the glass covering his face. He remembered watching his fingers merge together, but the end result was still strange to look at. Looking past the hand he remembered how his legs had been changing as well. Derrick shook his head. What the hell had happened? One second he was playing a game the next he was sitting somewhere he'd never been with the wrong number of fingers and toes. Holding a hand up to his face he realized that the glass over his eyes joined into a metallic mask that connected around his head in a helmet. Wait a minute…three fingers...two toes…weird suits with glass visors and metal masks. His hand reached back and found a metallic mass coming out of the back of the helmet and connecting to his back. His shoulders slumped as the realization set in. Only one race he knew of had that strange connector between the back of the head and the torso. Quarians. He was a fucking Quarian.

There was a slight pause as Derrick's mind accepted the information before his body began shaking as a sudden fit of laughter seized him. His voice sounded strange echoing inside his helmet but he ignored it as the shouts of laughter shook him. Of all the races in Mass Effect he had to be a Quarian? His laughter cut off when a large monotone grey figure flashed through his mind. At least I didn't turn into an Elcor, he thought dryly, I'd have to describe every emotion that passed through me.

"Alarmed, Oh no, I've turned into a fictional alien race from one of my favorite video games," Derrick muttered in monotone to himself as he continued to study his new legs. How in the hell does Tali walk on these things? he thought as he flexed his two toes. It was an incredibly odd yet natural feeling to use the new limbs. His body was much more coordinated then he'd have thought it would have been being it had supposedly just been created. The blinding light bursting from his television and the black hole opening up mid multiplayer match to suck him and his friends into it were all he could come up with as the reason for his condition. After all, when the light had peeled away his flesh he'd watched as his fingers had melded together from five to three.

Derrick gagged suddenly feeling woozy at the image of his once normal hands contorting into this new unwelcome form. No Derrick, he thought to himself, It is not the time to throw up. Not when you're wearing a helmet. Lying back down he waited as the nausea passed before slowly sitting up again. He looked at his hands again and realized he should count himself lucky to even have a human like shape. What if he'd turned into a Hanar? God he already hated their voices, but the relentless politeness would grate on his patience to. No, I'm lucky to have what I have right now, Derrick thought to himself.

"Shit, I could have been dropped here with no suit on at all. Then I'd just be a dead naked quarian corpse," he said to himself before sitting up again and attempting to stand. Surprisingly his body cooperated and he swiftly rose to his feet. Looking down at his strangely bowed legs he had to wonder how this came so naturally. Shouldn't he be uncoordinated and awkward? Not used to this new alien body he found himself in. He to a hesitant step forward and when he didn't instantly collapse to the floor in a heap another. Soon he began to slowly walk as he watched his feet through his visor. Raising his hand he looked at the strange three fingered hand before tapping lightly on the glass of his visor. _SYSTEM ONLINE_. Derrick jumped as a refined female voice spoke inside his helmet. More distressing were the words appearing in his vision

_visual systems online…_

_auditory systems online…_

_shields online…_

_kinetic barriers online…_

_Omni-Sytems online…_

_Exoskeleton online…_

"_SYSTEM REBOOT COMPLETE," _the female voice spoke again this time not startling Derrick as he read the words being displayed on his visor, "_WELCOME DERRICK FREEMAN." _Derrick froze at hearing his name. "How in the hell does it know my name?" he wondered aloud. "_THIS SUIT WAS CUSTOM MADE FOR YOU MR. FREEMAN,"_ the voice said matter-of-factly, _"HAVE YOU FOUND IT TO BE DEFICIENT? _"What? No, I'm just…struggling to absorb all of this at once. It's kind of overwhelming," admitted Derrick honestly, "My plans for the night didn't include interspecies transformation." _"I SEE. WOULD YOU LIKE A SEDATIVE TO HELP YOU RELAX?" _asked the voiced courteously. "Uh, no that's alright," Derrick replied before finally taking a look at his surroundings. Not recognizing anything in particular he wondered if that voice had any idea where he was. "Uh nice lady in my head?" he spoke tentatively, wondering if the woman's voice was a V.I like in the game. That could get really annoying, he thought, remembering Avina from the first Mass Effect and the repetitious conversations he had with her. _YES DERRICK? _The voice asked smoothly. Derrick paused at the easy, casual way the voice sounded. The only thing he could compare it to in this universe was…well shit. "What's your name?" he asked calmly, struggling to remain so. If she was what he thought she was shit just raised to another level. …And being as he'd changed species and was probably in a videogame he'd played through at least five times that was saying something. "_I AM THE NETWORK OPERATIONS & VIRTUAL ASSISTANT & LINGUISTIC INTELLIGENCE SYSTEM," _her voice said with the same female monotone as before, "_BUT YOU CAN CALL ME JUNO_." "So Juno then?" he asked excitement building so much that he was actually bobbing up and down on his new feet. A thumbs up icon appeared on his visor making him blink for a second in surprise before he laughed in wonder. This is so awesome, he thought as the icon faded away after a couple of seconds. "Juno, are you an artificial intelligence?" he asked waiting with barely contained excitement.

EDI and Legion had been two of his favorite characters. This most likely was due to his large love of robotics at an early age that had literally spiraled into a love of math and anything to do with technology in general. It was that love that had sent him to MIT in the first place. So the idea of meeting an actual Artificial Intelligence was like being a kid at Christmas.

_NO,_ the voice said making Derrick's heart sink,_ I AM THE NETWORK OPERATIONS & VIRTUAL ASSISTANT & LINGUISTIC INTELLIGENCE SYSTEM. AN ADVANCED V.I SYSTEM TO ASSIST YOU WITH THE USAGE AND MAINTENANCE OF YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL SUIT ALONG WITH OTHER ISSUES THAT MAY ARISE. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCES ARE ILLEGAL IN CITADEL SPACE. _Derrick made a disappointed face, guess I won't be seeing any A.I.'s for awhile. Letting the issue drop he looked around at the polymer and steel walls that surrounded the alleyway he was in. It's definitely not Omega, he thought, its too clean to be- _ALERT, APPROACHING THREAT, _Juno's voice sounded in his ear startling him. "What?" he said looking around, "What's going on?" "_SUIT SENSORS HAVE PICKED UP APPROACHING MASS EFFECT FIELDS IN DANGEROUS QUANTITIES. RECOMMEND DEFENSIVE POSTURE. OMNI-SYSTEMS ONLINE. _

Derrick's eyes widened as two omni-tools appeared on his arms. Staring at the orange holographic gauntlets he watched as something looking like a videogame hud appeared in his vision. Two bars appeared in his lower left vision along with a circular radar in his lower right. One bar was labeled shields while the other was labeled For a second even with the approaching danger he got excited as he looked at his orange holograph colored arms.

As he studied the famous science fiction tools he noticed four slots on each gauntlet, although only three of the eight were filled in. Crouching down against the wall he looked closely at the three filled slots. He recognized each symbol. Incinerate, Tactical Scan, and Cryo Blast. Basic Engineer skills besides Tactical Scan he easily recognized that from multiplayer. It was one of the tech skills he most used with his male engineer class. His finger paused over the omni-tool before taking a breath he pressed the icon. His visor flashed and a large circle appeared on a wall highlighting a short figure's silhouette through the polymer wall. The figure appeared to be struggling as it stumbled down what Derrick guessed was another hallway leading to his own. Watching the figure stagger unsteadily to the door he glanced back to his omni-tool and quickly held his finger over the symbol for Incinerate. Whatever it was that was approaching him would have to deal with a face full of burning plasma if it gave him any trouble. "Juno, can I put Cryo Blast on my left omni-tool?" he asked hurriedly as Tactical Scan faded and he watched the door the figure would come out of. If he could hit this person with Cryo Blast and then Incinerate they wouldn't stand a chance. _YES, _Juno answered politely, _SWITCH COMPLETE. _"Alright, good," he said contently as he glanced down at the other omni-tool to see Cryo Blast there. He was about to ask how he could shortcut the tech skills when the door in front of him opened and a figure cloaked in bright blue flame collapsed through it. "H-help! Please, somebody help me," screamed out a female voice in terror. Derrick's finger froze an inch above Incinerate as he recognized the voice, "Hannah?"


End file.
